after taste

Imagine you are slicing a lemon in half. The juice begins to spill out and a zesty odour emanates from the fruit’s fragrant flesh. You take a bite – your tongue clenches on the sharp acidity. Close your eyes and remember that distinctive sourness. The visualisation of eating a lemon results in a physiological reaction whereby your mouth puckers and glands immediately produce extra saliva – a reactionary muscle memory preparation to dilute the (hypothetically) consumed lemon.

After Taste is Arin Dwihartanto Sunaryo’s first solo exhibition in Australia, presented by Sullivan+Strumpf in partnership with ROH Projects (Indonesia). This dynamic new work explores the interrelationship of our different senses with specific emphasis on how visual information informs taste, and vice versa. Sunaryo asks – how can sensorial experiences of the world be adequately translated into visual material? Through video, sculpture, and painting, Sunaryo reconfigures the experiential human palate by using material and visual methodologies of the artist’s “palette.” Apparently mundane memories and experiences – eating a lemon, biting into a chilli, or sipping on bitter coffee – are translated into abstract painterly gesticulations that distil and preserve sensations. The result is a proprioceptive articulation – enticing the viewer to let an aesthetic experience tingle the taste buds.

Born 1978, Bandung, Indonesia
Lives and works in Bandung, Indonesia

Arin Dwihartanto Sunaryo received a Bachelor’s Degree in Painting from the Bandung Institute of Technology (2001) and a Master’s of Fine Art at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London (2005). Sunaryo is interested in the utilization of resin as a medium that captures minerals, pigments, and other particles in various states of flux within a sense of stasis. Working initially with more industrial pigments, he has more recently worked with volcanic ash, perishable food ingredients, as well as crude palm oil and converted them into his own distinctive pigments.

Sunaryo’s work has been featured in numerous exhibitions in Southeast Asia, Europe, the UK, and USA, including No Country: Contemporary Art for South and Southeast Asia at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA (2014). Selected solo exhibitions include Arin Dwihartanto Sunaryo: New Paintings at Art Basel OVR: Portals presentation by ROH Projects (2021); ARGO at Simon Lee Gallery, London, UK (2019); after taste at Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney, Australia (2017); Silent Salvo at ARNDT Gallery, Berlin, Germany (2015); and group shows include External Entrails at Silverlens New York, New York, USA (2022); IRL at Art Basel OVR: 2020 (2020); Ripples: Continuity in Indonesian Contemporary Art at Taipei Dangdai, Taiwan (2019); These Painter’s Painters at ROH Projects, Jakarta, Indonesia (2018); iris at Silverlens Galleries, Manila, Philippines (2018); ω at Edouard Malingue Gallery, Hong Kong (2017); Biennale Jogja XIV: Age of Hope in Yogyakarta, Indonesia (2017); Constituent Concreteness at Mizuma Gallery, Singapore (2017); Lines of Flight at Gallery Exit, Hong Kong (2017); Lompat Pagar/Crossing Borders at National Gallery of Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia (2015); Marcel Duchamp in Southeast Asia, Equator Art Project, Gillman Barracks, Singapore (2012); and Manifesto, National Gallery of Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia (2008). Sunaryo was nominated as a Finalist for Best Emerging Artist using Painting by the Prudential Eye Awards in 2015; and a Finalist in the Sovereign Asia Art Prize in 2010.